Bourbon Vignette
by lebratprince
Summary: [AU] Trowa is a street performer in New Orleans, LA. His life hasn't been easy, so far, and just as he thinks he may have found a future, he meets a mysterious, predatory young man in a bar. Who is this man, with an air of death to him? What does he want? And why does Trowa find himself so drawn to his own inevitable destruction? (2x3)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This story is told through journal entries, thus they'll be (likely) less than ten pages (in Word) per chapter. This is a good and a bad thing. On one hand, shorter chapters. On the other, they take less time to write, and are a faster read. It'll balance out, don't worry.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gundam Wing, or any of the places I write about in this story. Some places used are actual places within New Orleans, however any references to people are fictional.

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May 13, 2013

I'm skeptical as to the usefulness of maintaining a journal, but Catherine suggested it, and I'd be lying if I claimed to be anything but desperate. It's a Saturday evening, and it's humid, disgustingly hot. Later I'll be on Bourbon, twisting to the trills of Quatre's violin, if he can take a break from studying, which I doubt. I think we should update, join the players who have moved to electric models, but he says he prefers the more pure sound of the strings and the wood. I go along with it because, well, he's the musician, and he's kept Catherine and I in our little apartment more months than I want to admit.

He's been something of a savior as of late, this boy who came into my life as a meandering tourist. Quatre is what people call a "trust fund kid," but he doesn't much act like it. Sure, he's cultured, and his accent isn't quite the drawl of the South, but he also doesn't look down on anyone, judge anyone, and he's fantastic with a bow in his hand. He stopped and watched my routine, cartwheels and flips and one armed handstands, almost two years ago. I was upside down when I first saw his blond hair, his blue eyes. I was upside down, but I thought he was the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen.

I guess I sort of fell for him that day. Which isn't to say we immediately ran into each other's arms or anything; that only happens in the movies and sappy romance novels. But we did become friends. I took him to the Café du Monde that same evening, while he bought our beignets and café au lait. I showed him the trick of blowing the powdered sugar at your friends, especially pertinent because it was his first time, watched as the find dust settled over him, his blue eyes wide, his grin almost instant. He got me back for that, eventually, and now he does it every chance he gets, customs be damned. It's annoying, but also endearing, in his own sort of way.

Catherine and I were living down in the Lower Ninth, when we first met Quatre. I didn't want him to see our little house, a one bedroom with water damage still from Katrina, but he insisted. That wasn't the first time I was made acutely aware of my station in life, but it was the first time in a long time that I cried because of it. Quatre just looked at me for a moment, before pulling me close, whispering that it didn't matter. He's never once tried to tell me he understands the things I feel, experience, see, and I think that's kept us together, even when he's going ridiculously out of his way to attempt to make things better for Catherine and me.

That first time he was in town, he stayed for nearly a month before his father called him home. We knew by the end of that time that we wanted to be together. Everything was love. Love for each other, love for the city, love for the future. For the first time in a long time, I started to think things might be all right. Of course, I'll never be able to be for him what he is for me. It's been nearly two years and I know that more now than I did then.

How he convinced his father to let him move to New Orleans, I don't know. Tulane is a great school, but there are better, and the way Quatre talks, he could have gotten into any university in the nation, or even abroad. I know why he chose Tulane, because of me, but I can't claim to understand it. Why chose me over whatever other future he might have obtained? Why chose some weather beaten city? A nearly destroyed boy, turning flips for tourists with spirits flowing through them, vapor on their breath?

I'll never be like him, capable of studying and earning a degree. It's not that I'm not smart enough, rather that I can't afford it, wouldn't know what to study if I could. I don't have the passion for continued education, because acrobats are all I've ever wanted. That and writing, but I've never had faith in that.

Maybe I can become Quatre's trophy husband. It isn't as though I have anywhere left to fall.

He wants me to write stories, and it's for him, more so than for Catherine, that I've actually started this journal. Maybe it'll end up a gateway to something more, some emergence of creativity I've only ever previously channeled into my performances. I'm somewhat doubtful, but it's possible, isn't it? Writers are supposed to be tortured, underprivileged, damaged and writhing. Isn't there some saying about suffering deepening a person's ability to craft something sensational?

Maybe there's a story lurking within me somewhere, a way to make myself more worthy of the things I've been given. Quatre moved us out of the Lower Ninth and into the Quarter proper, to the D. H. Holmes apartments on Bienville. I want to repay him for that, somehow, and maybe a story could be the beginning of my atonement. He doesn't live with us, because of policy on Freshmen under twenty three, but we share the closet, and the dresser; I guess that's the least I can do for him right now, since he all but pays the rent.

Lately it's just been me in the apartment, and me on the street. Catherine finally convinced the manager at the aquarium to give her a part time job, but that was months ago and she's since moved up to full time, and Quatre is busy with finals. It's difficult to raise any money as a street performer with no backup, and there's only so many rain soaked May afternoons I can spend on one arm, suspended against gravity, my face morphing to interesting shades of red as people slip dollars and change into the Mardi Gras mask I use to collect my fare. Some days I hardly make anything at all. I wear the mask, then, lean against the nearest wall, my head hung. I'm not still enough to be a living statue, but people take pity on me sometimes. I guess no one wants to see a sad clown.

Maybe it's time I grew up, found a job. I have friends on Bourbon who might be willing to let me try my hand in their bars, though if I'd be any good at it, I don't know. More likely than not, I'd stumble home drunk more often than I already do. I try not to drink, but there are so many strangers willing to buy someone drinks. I suppose some of them may expect things from me, but they never get more than a kiss on the cheek as I slip away. That part I'm a master at, disappearing, vanishing as though I were never there. Were people in the bars that late at night more sober, I might have become something of a legend, but when I want a drink, I pick my marks with more careful selection.

Sometimes I wonder if Quatre and Catherine might be right. They don't know I hear them talk about me, but I do. Catherine is worried I'm slipping, becoming more distant, out of tune with the world. Quatre doesn't know, responds in hushed tones to tell her as much. Something about me is different, he says. I'm adjusting, he says. I'll be all right, he says. He'll talk to me, he says. But he never does. I think he's afraid, terrified that maybe she's right. And who knows?

So many people don't make it in this city. It swallows them whole and nothing is ever left. The swamp engulfs life, chases it away, blends it with the murky water and putrid reality of its inhabitants, the things it hides... Why should I be any different? Why should I not court disaster and death? Catherine is making it. Quatre couldn't fail at something if he tried. So where does that leave me?

I don't think there's room in success for the three of us, not so long as we're together.

But I shouldn't think these things, and I think I heard the door open, just now. Perhaps it's Quatre, come to tear me from my delusions of destruction. God knows I need it. Later, I'll write more, something less dismal, perhaps, with a flicker of hope, like the glint on the wet cobblestones of the square…

How long since I've drank in the beauty of this city, the place of my birth? Were my parents still here the last time I truly let myself enjoy it? For a moment there, when Quatre was new, when I almost believed in miracles again, I'd started to see the loveliness evident in everything around me. But now things are changing, shifting back to the macabre, that strangling sense of surety that I can't escape some fate I've always known and never understood.

But Quatre really is here, so it's time to slip away into my world of carefully constructed deception, where I still believe in love, in forever.

It's funny, the turn this writing took. Even I didn't foresee it. But then, I so rarely do.

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**A/N:** I hope you enjoyed this. I have chapter two already uploaded, but I'll probably give it a couple of days before I post it, so I can get some padding in. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review (if you have time), and spread the word? Thank you~


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **My birthday is this week (tomorrow, actually!), so I haven't made the progress on this that I would have liked. I have some down time tonight, however, so I decided I'd post chapter two, and plug away at chapter three. Hope you enjoy~**  
**

**Disclaimer:** See chapter one.

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May 20, 2013

Working at a bar has done nothing to reaffirm my faith in people, rather it has reminded me how much I dislike the majority of them. I was hired at the Old Opera House, which has been my favorite bar since before I was legally allowed to drink there. The owner is a fan of mine, though I don't ask for the reason behind that, as I suspect it has more to do with my appearance than my skill. Regardless, he agreed to let me work there, carting about specialty shots, cleaning up after the masses stumble home, even standing on the sidewalk, attempting to lure people within, though our drink specials do a decent job of that, even on a street of excess.

For the most part, the people who wander in are friendly, if sometimes too intoxicated. I don't get as many leering catcalls as when I'm in shorts and a tank top, twisting and spinning on the street for cash, though there are more people inclined to at least attempt to flirt with me. This doesn't bother me, really, and the first few nights it was actually quite pleasant.

But something happened last night, something I don't entirely understand.

A young man was standing at the bar, half his head shaved to nothing but dark fuzz. The rest was gathered into a sweeping side braid that dipped down past his hips. His jacket and pants were leather, and beneath the jacket was a turtleneck of deepest red. A cross dangled from his neck, glinting silver in the light from behind the bar. He had one foot on the bottom most rung of the barstool nearest to him, and the boots caught my attention; massive leather things with what looked like blood red silk ribbons lacing up them.

He was leaning against the bar, chatting with Marina, and when she passed his shot to him, he reached for her hand instead of it. I've seen that sort of thing before, boys who think they're permitted to touch someone just because of professional friendliness, and Marina is always the best at dispatching unwanted advances. This time, however, she let his fingers flit across hers, as he turned her hand, palm up, stroking the skin of her wrist.

I had to move closer, had to hear their conversation, so I ducked through the growing crowd, ignoring the empty mugs on the tables I was supposed to be cleaning.

"Nice to meet ya, Marina," he said, still touching her, trailing his fingers up her palm, following the lines there like some charlatan at Jackson Square. "It's a pretty name, is it French?"

"I guess," she said, her voice almost dreamlike as she stared at him, the shot between them forgotten. "I'm a New Orleans native, so, it happens."

"Ah, this is my first time here, but it's a nice city," he said. "Do you get off soon? I'd love to hit the town with you."  
"My shift's over at midnight, yeah," she said, as I edged closer.

"I'll wait for ya then," he said, pushed the shot glass back toward her. "This is for you, 'till I see you later."

She nodded, tipped back the shot of amber liquid, didn't even wince, which was better than I could have done. The man was turning away, then, his eyes locking on mine as he did.

It felt as though my soul were quaking, to be caught in that gaze. As though some forgotten predator had walked into my path and marked me, or at least contemplated the same. In that instant I wanted to run, to flee, to hide somewhere, anywhere that would get me away from him, from his frightening presence.

His head tilted to the side, but the bar was dark, and I couldn't see his expression well enough to know what it meant, to collect sufficient details as to formulate an opinion on the situation. It was almost as though he were blurry, as though a film covered him that prohibited me from truly seeing him, understanding him.

I wanted to speak, to say something, anything, but I couldn't find my voice, couldn't find anything like my courage, as he stood there, watching me watch him, and slowly he smiled, tipped his head toward me, before turning more completely and walking from the bar.

A moment later I rushed to the sidewalk, searching for him, but I couldn't find him in the sea of people. I turned, darted to the corner to peer up and down Toulouse, but it was much the same, and that tributary street was almost deserted, so early was the evening crowd.

When I returned to the bar, Marina was wiping it down, smiling as was her custom. I approached her, watching for any sign that something was amiss.

"That guy," I said.

She looked at me, an eyebrow raised. "Yeah? What of him? Not really my type, but he was pretty cute, don't you think?"

I don't know how everyone came to the knowledge that I prefer males, but they did.

"I suppose."

"He wants to go out once I get off work," she said, smiled more. "Didn't get his name though… Oh well."

I wanted to say more to her, to ask how she could have possibly not noticed that something about the man had been wrong, off somehow. I should have said something, voiced my opinion, my worry. But I held my silence, just nodded to her as I turned to finish my work. I wanted to get out of there, to be home where maybe Quatre would be waiting, so I could crawl into bed with him. And even if he wasn't there, I could at least email him on the laptop he gave me, an old one from when he was in high school, but it works well enough for my purposes, and my stolen wi-fi connection.

"Hey, Trowa," Marina said, and when I looked back to her she was passing a shot across the bar.

"Company policy is not to drink on the clock," I said, eyeing the drink.

"I know, but I won't tell if you don't," she winked at me as I nodded, took the shot in a gulp that burned as it slid down my throat, settled in my core. She laughed as I grimaced, sat the shot glass down with a clink.

"I hope you don't expect a tip," I said, smiling just a little.

We drank more, as the next shift trickled in, helped her at the bar and me on the floor. It was an average night. I ferried shots to the guitarist on the stage, beers to the lead singer between songs. The crowd grew as the night deepened, and at five till midnight, the man came back, his cheeks flushed, but his mannerisms entirely sober.

I didn't wait to see what would happen, if he would look at me or notice me or anything else at all. I just left, skipped down a few bars to a stand that sold Grenades, and ordered one to drink on my way home.

The bite of the drink was enough to distract me from the worries plaguing my mind. I'd drank enough at work that it pushed me past being tipsy and into a state of pleasant drunkenness. Catherine wasn't awake when I let myself into our apartment, and Quatre wasn't in my bed, but I was drunk enough that it didn't matter, as I fell into it, promptly asleep.

But all I've been able to think of since waking, my head pounding and my mouth dry, screaming for water, is Marina and that man. For the first time, I long for the phone number of another, the ability to call her, to make sure she is all right. Because there was something about that man that wasn't innocuous at all.

I've told myself a thousand times that it is nothing, that worrying is a silly waste of my time. It won't accomplish anything, and therefore I should discard it. Yet time and time again I return to this inkling sense of what if. What if my instincts aren't wrong? What if there was something sinister about his intentions with Marina? What if I was in the wrong, to not at least attempt to protect her when every fiber of my being so loudly screamed at me to do so? I could have condemned her to some horror, some fate beyond the reach of my knowledge, my imagination.

I have to tell someone about this. I feel as though I will burst if I don't. But who do I tell? In whom can I confide something so potentially damning? Because in one way, I could be a savior who turned his back. While in another, a poor boy with an overly imaginative, nightmare filled mind. Is it best, then, to keep my own counsel, at least until more information can be obtained? And if I am to do that, how do I gather more facts?

How do I proceed? How the hell do I proceed?

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**A/N: **Again, review if you see so fit (but I'd love it), and do share~ Chapter three coming soon.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I've decided to go ahead and post this, even though I don't have chapter four started or even really conceptualized. Today is my birthday, and I'll likely as not be too busy to much worry about fanfiction this weekend. I wanted you to have this, however, so I hope you enjoy it.

**Disclaimer:** See chapter one.

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May 23, 2013

Quatre thinks I've lost my mind. He hasn't told me in so many words, but it's in his gaze, the way he watches me write, the way he asks if I'm all right, if I would like to go for breakfast with him. He means well, of that I have no doubt, but he has more important things to worry about than whether or not I'm getting enough sleep, or eating enough. Point of fact I'm not doing enough of either of those things, I just can't. Something is going on, and I'm the only one who's been able to see it. That makes it my duty to at least try to do something about it, doesn't it?

Marina hasn't been to work the past three nights, despite being on the schedule. The last two nights we've been so understaffed that I ended up behind the bar, which is not a thing at which I am particularly skilled. Inevitably I made drinks wrong, or couldn't hear what the customer said. I'd reach for a Rolling Rock when a Newcastle had been ordered, or I'd forget what special we had for a certain hour. My nerves were shot by the end of the night, and I found myself sitting with the other bartender, who'd come in mostly to rescue me, taking shots of straight whiskey to calm myself.

It's becoming habit that I stumble home at the end of my shift. Catherine hasn't realized it yet, and with finals bearing down on Quatre, neither has he. In that regard, I'm lucky, but I know better than to think it'll continue. Summer is almost upon us, and he'll have too much spare time, then, even with his volunteering. I can cope with him thinking I'm working myself too hard, that I'm fixated with something that isn't real, but I cannot risk him thinking I'm becoming an alcoholic. Maybe I am becoming a bit dependent on the drinks I imbibe almost each night. I'm nervous, afraid, yes, but that's no real excuse for my actions.

It is my belief that Marina has met with some unfortunate end, likely at the hands of the young man with the odd hair. And hadn't there been a way to his movement that had made me wary? A sway to his hips as he'd left the bar. Utterly confident, that stride. But there was something else, something frightening and potentially, I don't want to use words that I cannot back up, because I might begin to sound the raving loon were I to, but he had seemed like some predator, almost. I mean only that his confidence went beyond that which I ordinarily see and into a realm with which I'm not entirely comfortable. There was something more to him, of that much I am certain. Maybe it's nothing mysterious, nothing necessarily sinister… Yet something about him unnerved me.

Would that I could make an anonymous call to the police, but I don't even have the qualifications to file a missing persons report. I don't know Marina well enough, I'm not even certain that her family lives in New Orleans. Perhaps she went home, wearied by the city, by Bourbon Street and the crowds there. It can be too much for people, surely I must be able to understand that.

Maybe I could do something other than investigate on my own. Perhaps I could call the police, or tell my coworkers of my suspicions. It's possible, I suppose, but it's never been my way of doing things.

I went to Marina's apartment last night, even though I know I shouldn't have. The door was unlocked, but I probably would have gone in, anyway, as I'd already made up my mind to discover whatever I could. It was stupid, with so many variables that I should have thought more carefully of. What if she had a roommate? What if she had been there? What if the police had come, summoned by a neighbor when they saw an odd boy enter her unit? So many things could have happened, but nothing I could have expected did.

The place was clean, lived in, but maintained well. In the kitchen were two shot glasses, and beside them a half full bottle of cheap vodka. The lid was still off it, sitting aside by the sink, but I had no way of telling when someone had been there, drinking. Even without any way to know, I still knew it had been the other night, when she'd met that man. She'd brought him back to her place after showing him the best bars the Quarter has to offer. But from there, what?

Her bed was unmade, the blankets skewed, ruffled as though someone had been in it, and recently, or two someones, I rather suspected. There was a condom wrapper lying beside the bed, which confirmed, in my mind, that she indeed had brought him back to her apartment. Only there was no sign that anything foul had occurred in the room, no stray drops of blood, no real signs of a struggle at all. Her closet didn't appear to be disturbed, not in any way I could discern, at any rate.

It was beginning to seem as though I'd broken into her apartment for no reason, when I heard the door swing open. I reacted the way I always see people in movies do, by jumping into the closet and pulling the door mostly closed. Marina would walk in, then, I told myself. She'd come into her room, pick up the condom wrapper on the floor, through it away, and continue on with her life. With my luck, she'd need something out of the closet, and then I'd be discovered, would have to explain to her that I'd been worried she'd been killed – which was the first time I allowed myself to think in such absolute terms – and had only broken in because I had to look for more information.

But she didn't come in, rather it was that man again, dressed very much the same as he had been when I'd seen him at the bar, only this time he wore huge aviator shades to cover his eyes. I remember wondering, who wears sunglasses at night? I mean, who actually does that? When his head turned toward the closet, his entire pose shifted into one of curiosity, almost the way a cat surveys something new, something it might think could become its next meal.

He knew I was there. Only that was ridiculous! I hadn't made a sound, and I'd been careful not to touch anything in the apartment, lest the authorities eventually become involved, as I had no reason to have ever been within those walls. There was no way he could know I was there, not unless he could hear the frantic racing of my heart, which was impossible. It thudded in my chest in a way that made it seem its own separate entity, completely removed from myself and living without me, but I know that was just the adrenaline, just the fear making things seem louder than they really were.

Yet something screamed to me that he knew, that he could see through the little hiding spot I'd picked for myself. I don't know how I knew that he could sense me there, that he knew, without a doubt, but I did. I knew it as surely as I don't know what my next course of action will be. He should have investigated the strange boy hiding in the closet, but he didn't. He picked up the condom wrapper, chuckled, before tossing it back to the floor.

He walked around the room a few times, looking at things, touching things, before leaving the room. I heard him rummaging through the rest of the apartment, my heart still racing as I waited for him to leave, or for Marina to come in behind him. Something in me knew that wasn't going to happen, as I counted the seconds without really being able to.

Eventually the man left, but I didn't crawl out of my hiding place. I was convinced he would come back, that he hadn't actually left, and that if I tried to leave he would catch me, do something to me that I didn't want to think about. There was no way to know if I was in danger or not, but I felt in my soul that I was. So I waited, I lurked in that dark closet for what must have been fifteen minutes, before finally coming out.

The vodka from the kitchen was gone, though the shot glasses remained. I wanted to check the freezer for it, to see if maybe he had only put it away, but I had to leave, had to get back to my apartment, to get ready for work. But Marina didn't show last night, either, though I never expected her to. I was distracted as I worked, made more mistakes than I normally would have, which led to me being frustrated, annoyed.

I was glad for my shift to end, and this time I grabbed a beer to go instead of staying to do rounds of shots. As I was walking the block or so from work to my apartment, I had the queer sensation that someone was following me. This was ridiculous! Bourbon street and its neighboring tributaries are almost never empty, and last night was no different. People were walking all around me, most of them in various degrees of drunkenness, but then again, so was I. Nothing about it was frightening, nothing about it out of the ordinary, yet the feeling permeated my soul as though whoever it was stood directly behind me.

Just as I was turning to enter my building, I caught a glimpse behind me of leather, a red shirt, red shoestrings and high rising boots. For a moment I thought I could see his smile, and those aviator shades, but then I was moving again, my heart racing.

I… I think I'm being hunted, only I don't know by whom, or by what. Something is happening , and I've stumbled onto it with absolutely no idea where next to go, or how to proceed. All I know is that I'm afraid, but also that I've come too far to turn back now. Something happened to Marina, I know in my soul that she's dead, killed by that man whom I believe is now after me. I have to bring her to justice, I have to see that he answers for what he's done.

But how do I do that? And now when I'm so afraid to do anything, to venture from my apartment.

Well that I have to do. I refuse to be cowed. So I'm slipping this journal into my bag, now, and heading out. If he's there, waiting for me, I'll be ready for him. Or as ready as I can be for this mystery assailant.

But in the event that something happens to me, and all that's left is what I've written here? I just want Quatre to know that I love him, and Catherine, too. If something happens to me, you two, please don't come looking for me. I don't want to pull you into whatever nightmare it is I've discovered. I just… Wanted you to know how much you mean to me…

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**A/N:** As always, I hope you enjoyed this, and if you have a moment, do drop a review. They make me develop the warm fuzzies. Also, sharing is caring~


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Sorry this took a moment to get posted. I was distracted by my birthday, and then by a friend graduating from university (she spent two nights here, so my writing time has been very limited). Basically, I did as I always do, which is to say I've been surfing tumblr and playing with critters (I acquired a new turtle, his name is Anakin) rather than writing. My bad.

**Disclaimer:** Standard disclaimer applies. See chapter one if you're looking for something in more depth.

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I spoke to a local occultist earlier this evening. He claimed to be a master of the history of the paranormal in New Orleans, and as I operated under the guise of a curious writer who had hit a block in my story, he was able to lead me to a new theory, one that continues to develop as I sit here, beneath the looming St. Louis Cathedral. This boy that I've been seeing, I described him as the antagonist of my story, was being hunted by the protagonist, though there are inklings that it might really be the other way around. It's heavily alluded within the prose, I said, that this boy is something sinister, dangerous. He's killed at least one person known by the protagonist, and now it seems he's hunting this naïve college student new to the Quarter and the dangers there.

The word vampire tumbled from the man's lips with a coy smile. It's overdone, he said. The entire literature and film market is so inundated with tales of immortal blood drinkers that there isn't much room for anything new. But that's what I was describing, he said. Not a ghost, not a witch, not a lycanthrope – which is apparently a fancy name for a werewolf – but a vampire. It would be fine to proceed, but I would have to be careful not to encroach upon the world of Anne Rice, or the less known writer of vampire fiction placed in New Orleans, Poppy Z. Brite. I'd also do well to remember my mythos, he told me, and not to depart too far from the classics. No more of this trifling nonsense of vampires walking in the day or sparkling under the sun.

I'm not sure this is a vampire story, I certainly don't want it to be. But there was something predatory about the boy I saw, with those shades pulled down low over his eyes, the casual way he interacted with Marina. And the way he'd seemed to know I was in her room. I don't doubt at all that he saw me, though he never made a move toward the closet in which I had huddled, terrified, my heart racing. Had he been able to hear it? Had that been what had given me away? But how could a human have done so? How could someone ordinary have known he wasn't alone? And wouldn't a human have checked? Investigated, called out? Something? Anything?

The implications behind the things I'm writing frighten me, but I mustn't forget what set me on this course. Marina didn't go to work again tonight, though when I checked for her at the bar, before coming here, I was greeted with skeptical looks. My coworkers are beginning to think something is going on between Marina and me, the way she's disappeared, hasn't phoned in to work, and the questions I keep asking. I can't keep going there to look for her, I need the job too badly.

Though I'm quickly putting myself in danger of losing my job, even if I am on friendly terms with the owner. My performance the past few nights has been atrocious. Without Marina or with her, it's only a short matter of time before I'm cast back to cleaning tables. Yes, if I go in tomorrow night, I'll have to be more attentive with my orders, and my mixed drinks. But I'm not certain I will be going in tomorrow. I'm not certain of anything at all anymore.

All night I've felt as though someone, or something, is watching me, following me through the city. As soon as the sun set it began, and I've tried to stay on busy streets ever since. Even now, under the street lamps of Jackson Square, my back to the black iron fence that keeps people from the square proper, I feel as though there are eyes trailing my hand as I write this, watching the slump of my shoulders as I lean closer to the page. Yet, when I raise my attention, when I scan the people around me, the distance, I can see no one of import. The horse drawn carriages are running still, and they're attracting a nice sized crowd. I can hear the laughter coming from the Café du Monde, can smell the river from the Moon Walk just across the street. There are people all around me, but I've yet to see the flash of red I've come to equate with this boy for whom I have no name.

Maybe I'm losing my mind. Maybe Quatre's right. Maybe I'm fabricating all of this, crafting some world for myself that is easier to exist within than the one I've known for the past twenty-two years, because murder and intrigue and mystery are preferable to the reality that I'm doing nothing with my life.

That's the crux of it. Quatre will be graduating soon, moving on to graduate school. Catherine finally has a job she loves, and with the money she's making there she can go back to school if she wants. But what options do I have? I work at a bar, badly, and before that I was only a step above turning tricks on Bourbon.

If Quatre could see me now, I wonder what he would say? I wonder, what sort of falsely positive, vaguely reproachful things would tumble from those lips? When was the last time I kissed them? The last time I leaned against him and merely existed within his warmth? He's been so busy with school, and I've been preoccupied with work, and now with this bizarre new obsession in my life.

It's swallowing me whole. What's worse? I'm not sure I want it to end.

I'm done. I'm tired of wallowing in my self-deprecation. There's twenty dollars in my pocket, and a fortune teller just down the way. Maybe I'll see if the mystics have anything to tell me, if maybe they can enlighten my soul, point me in the direction best traveled.

God knows I need something, some light in the darkness that is beginning to swallowing me. The permeating fear of insanity, or worse, that I really am courting the Devil.

* * *

Quatre found me at Jackson Square. I was sitting at a little fold out table, a candle between me and the card reader across from me adding the sort of flickering light one often expects from such events. She was laying out her cards, mumbling about their meaning, but my ten dollars didn't seem to be buying me any insight. I was about to give her another ten, something to hopefully taunt the spirits, or whatever it was, into giving me something to work with beyond the tour guide's suggestion that I was talking about a vampire, when a land landed on my shoulder.

The touch was familiar, and yet I jumped, let out a little yelp, and nearly rolled from the chair. I've taught myself some self-defense, smooth flowing things that lend themselves well to my acrobatics, and they almost came out then. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew it was Quatre, even before he spoke, but I couldn't banish the form of the stalking boy.

"It's okay, Trowa, I didn't mean to startle you," his soft cultured, nondescript accented voice said, and I knew he was smiling before I turned to look at him. "Catherine said you were out."

Were there implications behind what he'd said? Something I didn't see, either because I couldn't, or because I didn't want to? Why was he really there?

Checking up on you, a voice whispered in my mind, my own but somehow different, foreign. I shivered, despite that it was warm.

"I've been writing," I said, gestured to my bag, the journal in which I now write protruding from it, a little slip of pretty leather I'd thought was too extravagant for anything I might pen in it, but which Quatre had loved.

"Anything new?" He asked, glanced to the fortune teller, his blue eyes narrowing, though never unkindly. "I'm sorry, I'm interrupting, aren't I?"

I shook my head, gave the woman another five dollars, despite that the reading hadn't been worth it. But I was cutting things early with her, not giving her a chance to prove herself, and despite my limited funds, I felt bad about it. As I stood, she thanked me, began shuffling the cards again. I more than half expected one to fall out, the grinning specter of death, perhaps, with an undercut and long braid, leather and red silk.

No such thing. There was no new revelation as I stood, allowed Quatre to lead me away, toward the river. He loved that spot, up the stairs that would allow us to look at Jackson Square, the cathedral, the horses and their carriages, drivers ignoring them as tourists reached out to passingly stroke them. He still loved the river, whose dark waters lapped against the rocky shore as we stood, our backs to the city, his blond hair rustling in the wind.

I was struck by how beautiful he was. His features soft, his eyes large and innocent seeming. But I knew there was a strength beneath him that outweighed my own. Looking at him was like looking at the future, a glittering possibility. I must have been staring because he turned to me, moonlight illuminating pale skin as he smiled.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," I said, forced my eyes away from him and back to the water. There were no boats on it, though the evening was still relatively early, before ten pm at least, and it looked vast and empty, as I peered toward the spanning bridges of the freeway. They led away from the heart of New Orleans, carried away dreams and danger and whispered lies.

"Are you sure?" Quatre asked, his arm hooking in mine, pulling me close enough to breathe in the scent of him. Something pleasant, not overpowering yet uniquely belonging to him, like spices floating on the wind. "You seem distant. You have lately."

"I'm just, worried, I guess, I don't know," I said, staring at the waves, but not really seeing anything. There was nothing there, absolutely nothing. No answers, no new questions. Maybe I am beginning to lose my mind.

"What about? You can talk to me, you know."

Pain in his voice, unmistakable even by me. Had we drifted so far without my realizing it?

"I know," I said, leaned over to kiss him. Our relationship wasn't filled with much slow building passion, not the thing of which stories are made at any rate, because neither of us knows what we want, sexually, I suppose. But every now and then the tingling splendor of his kisses take me off guard. When I pressed my lips against his earlier tonight it was as though something in my soul was lit, a burning fuse with no end, but rather all smoldering and almost painful as my hand went to the nape of his neck, pulled him deeper into the passion within myself that often surprises me.

I was lost in the kiss, detached from the world and anchored only by him. Maybe that's why I didn't see him until he was only a few feet away, sitting on the bench that overlooked the Moon Walk, the river. His hair was still swept to one side, buzzed along the left side of his head, dipping into a long braid on the other. One leg was crossed over the other, his boots rising almost to his knees, and the strings were still crimson ribbons, matching the shirt he wore beneath a finely crafted leather jacket. He smiled when my eyes opened in the kiss, saw him, and widened.

Come to me, that expression said. Come to me, and discover the answers only I can give you.

That smile grew, shifting into a slow grin. He must have been about my age, only there was something in his eyes, a cobalt that was at times almost violet when the light from the moon played on them, the lights from the city, something that suggested knowledge beyond anything I could hope to understand. He nodded, watching me, rose to his feet as I broke the kiss with Quatre, my heart racing.

"What's going on?" Quatre whispered, eyes searching my expression. And I knew I was hurting him, knew I was confusing him and frightening him and pushing him away. What choice did I have?

"I can't explain right now," I said. "Go to the apartment? Wait for me?"

He turned to look behind him, toward the boy who still stood with his eyes on us, seemingly unafraid of being noticed. But I grabbed for Quatre's chin, kept his eyes on mine. "Quatre, please? I'll tell you everything, okay? But I need to do something first."

I wonder if he could see the pain in my eyes, as I watched him. I wonder if he could feel my heart aching to be injuring him the way I was. If he did, he didn't say anything, only lowered his head in a nod. My all too forgiving and understanding Quatre. Even when I was hurting him, lying to him and keeping secrets from him, he wanted to trust me, to believe in me. No one else had given me that opportunity. And in that moment I considered going back with him, forgetting about Marina and the boy and everything they might represent.

But she was dead. I still felt that somewhere in my soul. And ultimately, the desire to understand was too powerful for me to ignore.

I watched Quatre cross the street, his eyes not on me, but up to the spires of the Cathedral, and I wondered if he were praying. And if so, was I included, and would it protect me?

Turning to look at the boy, his smile as he took an easy step toward me, I believed I was far from salvation, beyond it, as I watched the Devil prowl closer, the night closing in around me, even as laughter drifted from the Café.

* * *

**A/N: **Again, sorry for the delay (it was a bit longer than the others, so hopefully that makes up for something?). I'll try not to do that again. No guarantees of course. As always, review if it strikes your fancy, same with sharing~ Thanks for your time.


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